Founding documents lay out America's promise
The great promise of America is laid out in our founding documents. The Declaration of Independence tells us that all men are created equal. At the time, the founders actually meant white “men,” as women couldn’t vote and most blacks were slaves.
Our Constitution established our government to form a more perfect union, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
We created the Great Seal of United States with the motto “E pluribus unum”— out of many, one.
The initial reference was to a single nation made up of several states. It has later come to also mean that we are on people made up of many peoples, races, and religions.
Our national anthem defines us as the land of the free and home of the brave.
Lincoln told us at Gettysburg “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
These are all great ideals to which we should and do aspire. But, in reaching for them we often fall woefully short. We pitted brother against brother to fight a civil war. Yet, less than 100 years later, we rose to the task, as the Greatest Generation, and pulled together to win World War II. That effort proved that we are capable of working in concert for a great cause.
Today we are faced with problems as threatening to our future as were the Germans and Japanese in the 1940s. But, we are so far from accepting the notion that we are all in this together, that, unless something changes, we will tear ourselves apart.
Rather than working to makes us all winners, many of us believe — if you win, I lose. Fewer of us are willing to lend a helping hand to those in need. Rather, we have labeled them “takers.” We no longer accept that we are all in this together, that we are all Americans, and that we are one people.
Lest you scoff and don’t believe what I’m saying, maybe you can explain why we tax capital at lower rates than labor.
Maybe you can explain why employers are cutting workers hours to classify them as part-time so they can cut benefits like health care. Maybe you can explain why so many states have right-to-work laws that keep wages down and unions from organizing. Maybe you can explain why employers no longer share productivity gains with employees. Finally, maybe you can explain why so many states are changing their voting laws that prominent Republicans like Colin Powell and J.C. Watts are accusing their party of disparaging and disenfranchising minorities.
Unless we find a way to change direction, we will Balkanize this once great country and lose it forever.
BOB WYNHAUSEN
Sandpoint